It must have been becoming clear to editor Stan Lee that the quirky back-up strip that he'd let artist Steve Ditko introduce was growing in popularity among the readership. So while it would still be several months before Doctor Strange would headline a STRANGE TALES cover all on his own, he had gone from carrying … Continue reading WC: STRANGE TALES #121
Continuing on our survey of the fourth and final issue of FOOM, Marvel's fan club magazine, put together by Jim Steranko. As was pointed out in the comments, this cover image was done by Jack Kirby for a Marvelmania poster, not by Steranko at all. It's pretty impressive that, at a time when Kirby was … Continue reading FOOM #4, Part Two
Now this was a comic book that I had been eagerly anticipating for several months once I had realized that its reprinting was approaching in the sequence. By 1978, the demise of Gwen Stacy was established canon--even the original Clone storyline was finished by then--but the story of her death was still referenced and talked … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #98
FOOM #4 was the final issue of Marvel's fan club magazine to be put together by Jim Steranko. After this, production on the irregularly-published fanzine would be brought in-house and done by the people on staff beginning with Tony Isabella This resulted in a change in the design and the aesthetics of the magazine. But … Continue reading FOOM #4
This issue of THOR featured the wrap-up to the long-running Ragnarok sequence begun by writer/editor Roy Thomas, a saga that felt like a saga to me even as it was coming out. Looking back, the story is more of a mixed bag than I had considered at the time, when I was very much into … Continue reading BHOC: THOR #278
Tis was a slightly more noteworthy issue of STRANGE TALES than many of the other ones that were in the box of comics that I bought as my Windfall. For the most part, any issues that could have been considered "keys" for one reason or another had been extracted. But this one was close, and … Continue reading WC: STRANGE TALES #120
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Marvel Comics carried with it a certain amount of counter-culture cache. This was due in part to the new faces coming into the business sharing some of those sensibilities naturally, as they were then the same relative age as most members of that youth group. But also, in … Continue reading CREEM v4 #11: And Now, Spider-Man and The Marvel Comics Group
One of the benefits to the Doctor Strange television movie airing was that there was suddenly an interesting in doing a bunch of Doctor Strange-themed ancillary publishing. I hadn't really connected with the character before this. Especially in the 1970s, his stories tended to be heady and metaphysical in the manner of the time, and … Continue reading BHOC: DOCTOR STRANGE POCKET BOOKS #1
Throughout the 1970s, as he removed himself more and more from the specifics of writing and putting together comics, Stan Lee, now Marvel's Publisher (and briefly its President) spent a lot of his time doing publicity for the firm--and for himself as its charismatic and creative wellspring. These pieces certainly tended to over-inflate Stan's creative … Continue reading OUI v6 #3: Conversation with Stan Lee
This issue of JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY featuring Thor was another one that I came by as part of my Windfall Comics purchase of 1988, wherein I paid a guy I had bumped into at the Post Office $50.00 for a long box filled with close to 150 Silver Age comic books. It was the best … Continue reading WC: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #121
The Tom Brevoort Experience 